NFL Betting Guide: Top 10 Tips for Beginners

Last time, in this article, we discussed NFL rules and American football betting basics. This time, let’s look a little bit deeper.

With a new season coming soon, many people will put their trust and money into various teams, but only some of them are going to be lucky. Do not be like the majority, do not count on luck and do your homework before you start betting.

So here StakeHunters presents you some invaluable tips that you must use in order to be a successful NFL bettor.

1. Choose a direction. We know this might sound crazy to you and you have heard about tips to select your sport and league, but this one goes even deeper. The NFL has 32 teams, game on average takes 3 hours of your time. Consider how much time you need to prepare, if you tend to watch those games, analyze stats and what the bookies are offering you. This is the reason why you should select particular field, whether it be handicapping, money lines, totals or special events.
2. Choose right bookies. When you choose your expertise field, you ought to choose bookmakers that give you an opportunity to place bets that you want with the best possible odds. Some major betting websites will you give you great odds, but limited betting possibilities without special events, such as a way to choose how first points are going to be scored. Decide your niche, and when you do that, select the bookie. Pinnacle will possibly give you the best odds available while Bet365 gives you a more to choose from.
3. Never trust betting systems. Use proper bank management. This one is probably known for you since the same thing apply speaking about other sports betting. However, there are many different systems/strategies created for only NFL. Do not trust them. The only right way to make profit is to analyze games and keep your bankroll managed.
4. Analyze your bets. Win or loss without any other information say nothing. Sometime good bets turn into losses and bad bets make money. This is the reason why you should analyze what bets usually end up in your favor and which end up to be negative.
5. Let’s pay more attention to the NFL now :). To be successful at the start of the season (when many upsets happen), be busy during summer. Know who got drafted and why. Are those players any good? Will they even have a chance to prove themselves? How those star players spent their summer? Have they been working out with top notch coaches, just jogging a little to keep the 6-pack in place or partying and spending time on the beach? Pay special attention to quarterbacks and their doings.
6. Use 3^rd party statistics, use official stats, use all the stats. There are so many websites analyzing, gathering and combining statistical numbers. Some are very in-depth, so this gives you an enormous opportunity to analyze and make your predictions. See NextGen Stats or ESPN Stats, etc.
7. ATS – against the spread. This is the key stat in NFL betting. ATS converts one team’s game results according to the spread that was presented by the bookies before. This record shows covers, no-covers and pushes. Covers simply mean, how often one team managed to win when they had negative spread (when they had to win by at least a certain number of points). Covers are usually presented in percentage, so you could easily recognize these stats and make your predictions accordingly.
8. Over/under stats are also easily accessible and these show how often teams score more or less than bookies have predicted. To get more leverage, you can look for home/away stats or count that by yourselves.
9. Follow injury reports. There are dozens of ways to do that and this is crucial. Main QB or running backs missing can have a huge effect on the final score.
10. Do you know what bye weeks are? You can get to know bye weeks after the season schedule is released. Bye weeks are those when a team does not play. It is a well known thing that playing too many games or not playing games in a long time can have an effect on the team’s performance. Do your homework, know how NFL teams usually play after a pause.

This is it for now, happy hunting!